this is the point when we break together
by emilyforprez
Summary: she'd only ever bring him down to her level - it's the way she works.


**A/N: **Shameless advertising for my favorite band. Closed Heart Surgery - all these are songs and lyrics by them. And I love myself some Dair, especially bittersweet, angsty Dair. Sue me.

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**we look good in black.**

_you look good, i look good, when we're dressed in black, ready to paint the city red._  
_let's paint the city red._

He couldn't help but think she was a beautiful disaster, dressed in ebony like a widow she was not. Her brunette curls were tucked back in one of her trademark headbands, and she was perfect in her sorrow, her dark eyes downcast on the ivory casket and the unmoving body nestled inside of it. He couldn't help but think she was a beautiful wreck.

He shifted beside her, and there were no words to say. She looked up at him and there was vulnerability hiding in her eyes, something she dared not show, dared not reveal to anyone. And yet she showed it to him. The vulnerability that he only saw once before. She moved her lips, as if to say something, but there were no words to say.

Instead she buried her face in his chest and whispered truths into his ear, things she never revealed, not to anyone. And yet she showed it to him. They melted together, black fabric on black.

**sink slow.**

_sink slow with me tonight, i'll let you hold on tight. sink slow, and i won't mind.  
just turn off, turn off the lights._

She appeared in his dorm, bathed in a ghastly moonlight that made her seem an angel. He somehow didn't need to ask what she was doing there - or even an idiotic question like, "Are you okay?" She was silent and he was silent, even as she slipped off her gown and stood naked in front of him, lips trembling and eyes dark.

It was neither sexy nor fluid, the first time she gave herself to him wordlessly, curls splayed over his chest and breathing rhythmic and cold. She was frail in his arms, a fragile doll.

When she came, she didn't whimper his name, and somehow he didn't expect any different.

**her lips destroy.**

_breathe easy, little girl; you're alone now. what a funny thing to want in a small town.  
i don't even know what it was behind your eyes.  
was it pain, was it relief, was it another good time?_

"It never happened."

She was adamant on this, her voice cold, her lips set in a firm, bitter line. Her cheeks were no longer flushed and she was no longer bathed in the ethereal silver light spilling through his window. She was sitting cross-legged, ankles crossed daintily, not a hair out of place.

He should have nodded, like he understood. Like he knew exactly what she was saying. Instead he leaned back and closed his eyes and whispered, "You cried his name."

She stiffened, and her eyes raked over him until he felt too vulnerable to stand there. He wordlessly turned and slammed the door behind him. He wanted to turn back, but his voice was soft when he murmured, "Please be gone when I come back." She never heard him, but she never needed to.

**glass house.**

_wrap the rope around your throat; i wrote it down, i hope you know.  
read it, you know i'm right.  
i'm burning your glass house down tonight._

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

People like Blair Waldorf should not kiss people like Dan Humphrey. Things end that way. Life becomes too complicated. Yet she kissed him, and that was how it all started - that was how it all ended.

It was a quick kiss, and it meant nothing - yet it meant everything.

He wrote that night.

_She will be the death of me._

**parasols at sunset.**

_you're slipping everyday, don't even think to try;  
how can i hold you tight? you're not even mine._

She didn't look at him as a boyfriend; she saw him as an escape. He was her salvation, something to keep her distracted before she missed Chuck again. She was a crumbling mess. She was slipping away everyday from her family and she couldn't bring herself to care. Couldn't bring herself to try to pick up the pieces of again.

He would hold her as the sun set, painting the sky illuminated shades of orange and rose, breathing into her hair. She would squirm, because it didn't feel right - it never felt right. It never felt like it should.

"I'm not yours," she would tell him, reminding him of the one boundary he could never cross.

He would drop his arms then.

**the giving tree.**

_you can throw four letters at me all you like,  
it won't change whats wrong from what's right.  
the past few weeks were nice, i won't lie, but roses have thorns._

"I love you," he countered softly at her rebukes, at her anger. He was always an idealist, believing that everything could be solved with the power of love. He was a writer, and so he was an idealist. Always had been. He thought that if he told her he loved her, she would stop crying Chuck's name as she came, that she would stop using him and see him as more than an escape.

Instead she froze and pursed her lips, picking up her bag without looking back. "I don't love you," she retorted, barely pausing to toss out the words with an icy bite to them. "It doesn't change a thing."

She slammed the door on him, and he found himself staring at the ceiling, at the walls imprinted with Chuck's name.

_It still doesn't change a thing._

**jellyfish.**

_the swing set on top of the hill overlooks everything that's gone wrong,  
and time stands still._

"The first time, I hated him," she whispered, spilling all her secrets into the warmth of his arms. "I hated him so much. I didn't want him to be my first."

He should have resented that she was telling him everything about her relationship with Chuck, but he found himself listening. He found himself caring. He murmured apologies into her brunette curls, into her skin, into her mouth.

"I loved him," she cried into his chest, tears falling like shards of broken glass. "I loved him so much."

She looked up and caught his gaze, and they were mirrors of each other. Want and fear and heartbreak. They were terrified.

"When did the world start to hate me?" she asked him, and he had no answer for her, nothing to say, for he was still secretly asking himself that. He was still asking himself why God wanted him to fall in love with a girl who would never love him back. Who used him as an escape rather than a _home_.

"I'm sorry." He was spineless, he knew, with nothing else to say, but he gave her all he had.

**plastik.**

_and every time i land, it hurts even more, reaching for the handle of the closed door.  
and every time i stand, i fall back down._

For the first time that night, she didn't whimper Chuck's name. She didn't make a sound as he kissed her, as he traveled her body, something he'd learned over their last month in bed. She was silent and expectant and trembling.

For the first time she didn't say Chuck's name.

It was enough, he decided. It was enough.

(He wanted her to say his name. Just once.)

**handsome devil.**

_what a handsome devil, called the black kettle. she wants more  
but has a tendency to settle._

She was at his doorstep after the storm broke, into his arms after the door was open. She buried her face into his chest and he could feel her against his heartbeat. She must have been listening to his heart thrash, aching for her.

"I don't want Chuck anymore," she promised him, and it was a lie. He knew it was a lie the moment it left her mouth.

He was silent, still. _It was a lie_. "Okay."

She'd known he wouldn't believe her. "I'm not lying." Her words were hollow; she didn't quite believe herself. "I'm not lying," she repeated firmly this time. Trying to convince herself.

"Okay," he whispered again. His heart was shattering; she must have heard it, for the first time, for the last time.

**eleven eleven.**

_breathe out, you can see it in the air; it's so damn cold, you're not even aware,  
that it looks like smoke from the bullet in your throat._

"I love you," he told her again, and he wasn't lying. She knew he wasn't lying.

She was silent. It was perfunctory - every time he told her secrets, she was silent. She never spoke a word. There were no words to say, there was nothing she could tell him to make it better.

But for the first time that night, when the clock stroke 11:11, a time for wishes and dreams, she whispered his name.

It was the tiniest sound, the barely-audible sigh of contentment, a whimper that he could have missed. She whispered his name and suddenly it was the last time. He knew it was the last time.

"I love you." He said it again, and it was true.

She only sighed again - no words, no name.

There was a finality, he realized, about that tiny little name. A certainty that it was over - forever - and there was nothing else to say. Nothing else she could promise him, for she's the queen at breaking promises, and breaking hearts, and breaking boys.

She was at a breaking point and brought him down with her.


End file.
